Mommy by day, writer by nap

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Why I’m So Awesome at Distraction

I don’t think I have tell anyone this, but I think everyone can find an excuse not to write. It’s finding an excuse to write that’s the difficult part. So in the interest of full disclosure, here is a list of reasons why I haven’t written much in the last two weeks:

– My husband was out of town and I don’t like being in the house alone. Thus, I found it difficult to concentrate.– My husband was back in town, and the possibility of his entering the room suddenly and interrupting my thought process made it too difficult to concentrate.– My daughter was sick and needed care.– My daughter broke her arm (completely separate incident) and needed care. OK, that’s not even true. Yes, her arm is broken, but she doesn’t really need care. Still, for several nights I felt sorry enough for myself about having another toddler break his/her arm that I didn’t feel like writing.

All of these are completely superficial reasons. Not even really reasons at all. But they still add up to my writing a total of 1,000 words in the last few weeks. And my goal was 14,000. Yikes. It sounds even more pathetic when I spell it out. And those were just new reasons for not writing in the last few weeks. On any given night, my regular rotation of reasons are as follows:

– I’m tired.– There’s something really great on TV.– I need to catch up on writing blogs, which is really research, and totally worthwhile. (Riiiiight.)– The baby cried 20 minutes ago, and there’s a chance he will again.– I just changed a major plot point, which means by the end of my writing session I’ll have deleted more than I wrote. Which is depressing, so I might as well not even start.– I need to clip coupons/balance the checkbook/pay bills. Actually, anything that would normally be unpleasant and easily avoided must be accomplished immediately.– The fate of the world rests on my researching all minor actors from an episode of Quantum Leap I caught this afternoon. This includes both their Wikipedia and Internet Movie Database pages.– My future writing career rests on writing a rambling post for a blog no one reads.

So there are my excuses for not writing this week, last week, last year, and likely the next few years as well. What are yours?